Give Me A "K"!

I showed up at work this morning, and no more than 5 seconds had passed when I had a student trying to give me something. The kids were still having breakfast in the cafeteria. I was walking by and I could hear a student call my name. I turned around, and there was my student, LL.

He had a big grin on his face and he said, "Mr. Cater, I have something to give you." He started to reach into his backpack, and I stopped him with his hand midway into the pack. I told him to hold on to it for now, and that he could give it to me later when he came to class. He agreed, removed his hand from the backpack, and went back into the cafeteria to continue to eat his breakfast.

At my school, students have assigned locations to report to when they finish breakfast. For LL (like all my homeroom students), the location is in the hallway near my classroom door. There, they find a seat on the floor, and quietly read a book (while teachers who are on morning duty shifts, monitor).

After running a couple of errands within the building, I finally arrived at my room. LL (who had already finished his breakfast) was sitting as he should be, reading away. He caught me out of the corner of his eye, immediately jumped up, and said, "Mr. Cater, here...let me give you this..." I interrupted him, and reminded him that he was going to wait until class time. He smiled, agreed, and sat back down, continuing to read.

I entered my room, and continued to prepare the room for the day. After about 10 minutes passed, the morning bell rang. I went outside into the hall to collect my students. LL was already digging in his bag to give me this "thing" that he had been wanting to give me now for a little over 30 minutes. It was imperative (to him, anyway) to get it to me right away. Probably because, if he didn't give it to me at that very moment, he would forget completely (kinda like his homework situation).

He excitedly went into the classroom, set his backpack on his desk, and pulled out a......

Koozie.

Yup, a koozie. A koozie promoting "Sync," some sort of electronic/computer operating system featured in Ford/Lincoln/Mercury automobiles. He probably got it from the automobile building at the Texas State Fair, which is going on now here in Dallas. Anyway, I acted surprised, happy, and grateful. He was so excited! Apparently, he had a stash in his backpack because he asked if he could go see some other teachers. He obviously had several more official "Sync" koozies that he needed to distribute.

I always seem to get strange, odd little gifts from kids. Just add koozie to my ever-growing list of impractical-off-the-beaten-path-acts-of-thoughtfulness. While you do that, I'll take another sip of my "insulated" ice-cold Miller Lite. :)